Wallflowers Ride
by Angel Walking
Summary: Instead of wallowing in self-pity over the death of the 17th angel, Shinji is convinced by Asuka to go to a party that may be just the wrong place to be.... Rated for weapons, naughty words, and plastered people at the moment.


Music pulses and the walls vibrate in the glory of the bass section. Benches tremble under each chord, encouraging wallflowers to get up and DANCE.  
  
I refuse. How uninteresting. My bones ache in the suppression caused by the heat and loud sounds, and each window's thick with condensation created by all the dancers. A thickness suffocates me, surrounded here by all the too- short skirts riding up Barbie-doll thighs as seductresses make their moves. I would leave, save that the redhead in my charge is somewhere in this tangle of reeking bodies, probably in sort of trouble. Outside, couples get a little too serious in the 'privacy' beneath crack-induced haloes they see in the stars.  
  
Hurry up, Asuka. I want to go home. Broken sentences can be heard above the speakers – "heroine lines in the bathroom" – "pregnant, but nothing can be done" – "I wonder how many he's had". This is the wrong place to be, and I want to dissolve and hide within the earth, if only to get OUT of this hellhole.  
  
"Shinji!" Staggering suspiciously, Asuka approaches the bench. "Do you wanna…" breaking off, she emits a very un-Asuka like giggle, and my throat contracts in upon itself… "Do you wanna drive me home now? You can make sure I'm really safe… Safe." Somehow, she finds this funny, and hiccups out another giggle or two.  
  
As calmly and passively as I can, I rise, offering my arm more to stabilize her drunken body than to be gentlemanly.  
  
"You're the shweetisht thang…" Slurs the German girl, and I wonder at her growing resemblance to Misato. A whorish drunk.  
  
"Yes," I assure her, "I want to take you home. Now."  
  
"Yer so qu…quick, aren't you? Eager, are we?" Stumbling, she presses down on my arm with more weight than I would have ever guessed she had. Maybe alcohol makes you heavier, somehow…  
  
"Yes, I am." To go, at least. In her state, it could have been an invitation to anything else, but she would be easy enough to control.  
  
Stepping casually towards the door, I pulled her along, my hopeless stab at inconspicuousness.  
  
Another, faceless drunk staggered before me, blocking the door as he slid against the wall in a stupor. Calmly as I could, I directed Asuka around the body. However, the man slouched back into our new plotted path, barring any hope of exiting.  
  
"Stop." This guy meant business. Dirty business. Damn. "Where are you going? Nobody leaves the party. Not till it's over." Sneering, he let out a somehow ominous trickle of beery drool from the corner of his mouth.  
  
Please, I prayed to whatever God I wasn't trying to destroy, please be drunk enough that I can get by…  
  
"I'm taking her home." Hoping to make a sober, firm impression, I stepped forward, offering the first half-assed explanation that came to mind. "She's sick."  
  
She may as well have been, anyway. I don't think it would have mattered, though.  
  
"So'm I, but I do other things about it. Really, you should stay. I insist." The odorous man lurched towards us in a disturbingly menacing matter, and instinct caused me to shove Asuka before me, cowering behind the skirt I suddenly wished were fuller and easy to hide behind. The irony. I've been hiding behind skirts for years, but never in a literal sense. Now I was, and it sure as hell wasn't helping. Who came up with the dumb idea, anyway?  
  
Come to think of it, who came up with blades? Glitters from an overhead colored light passing briefly across us revealed the sheen of a blade. Great. An armed drunk. Why not?  
  
No… Fear, entirely worthless in this situation, filled up my insides till I was almost breathing it, an unbearable thinness in my lungs and blood.  
  
No.NO.NONONONONONONONONONONONO! HIDE!HIDEHIDEHIDEHIDE! Oh-god-this-was-a- bad-idea-oh-please-let-me-out-oh-please-oh-please!  
  
In front of me, the plastered female had her own methods for escape.  
  
"I'm pretty, don't you think?" Ruined somewhat by a hiccup, I realized her intended affect on the man….  
  
She was trying to seduce HIM?  
  
Drunk. Very. Very drunk. Oh please this is bad, this is bad, this is BAD!…  
  
Before my eyes, it got worse.  
  
"Because you know the pretty ones always come back…. And I will…." Blathering drunken nonsense at another drunken ass would get her nowhere. And we needed out. OUT! RUNRUNRUNRUNRUN! GO!  
  
"What the hell are you trying to pull?!" One fumbling step closer, you could see anger even in the silhouette of the knife-carrier. He was just sober enough to know what she was trying to do…  
  
This was officially beyond bad. Reaching new standards of bad at every minute. Oh please, please, PLEASE let me out…. Let me OUT!! OUT!  
  
Another figure has approached, steps slow but without a trace of the dazedness my current problems inhabit. Maybe he'll let me go… Let us go…. I needed to make sure Asuka was safe so I could KILL her for her 'brilliant' getaway idea….  
  
Satin-toned, the voice of the newcomer glides like melted butter in a far more seductive manner than my companion, "Let them go."  
  
Some level of security was reached within me, then, listening to that voice. Sweet and blessedly sober, it was asking – practically demanding by the control it had – for us to be set free.  
  
The hand clasping the offensive blade dropped, and the relaxing drunk let his shoulders slump, giving way to 'the voice'.  
  
"Think I should? Really?" Somehow gentle, the changed man dribbled his way through in a new manner.  
  
"Yes…." Something in the back of my mind seemed to be trying to separate itself from my head and join with the unbearably sweet tone of… whoever. Whatever they were doing, it wasn't only affecting the other man…  
  
"All right." Regaining his gruffness, the man I thought was out of the way brought back up his guard, "But if you've called the cops, you f-"  
  
Assuredly, the voice returned. "They haven't." The owner of the surreal voice placed his hands on the shoulders of the tensing man. I felt like peaces of my insides were sliding around and rearranging themselves at the will of his voice….  
  
Finally, I got my first real glimpse of Him as a wandering light flashed over, much as the first had. Contrary to the calmness in the voice, the eyes sparked a prompt at me – GOGOGOGOGO!  
  
Twelve minutes later, I was out for a relaxing cruise at 80 mph on the highway.  
  
I swear, it wasn't till I got home that I noticed. Relief ebbed and beneath it lay some semblance of wonder….  
  
His eyes. I had seen them before. 


End file.
